Geelong Advertiser … where is it?

The Geelong Advertiser is Victoria’s oldest morning newspaper, the first edition being published on November 21, 1840.

A mere 171 years ago today, the Geelong Advertiser included a supplement to the (then) standard 4-page issue. The supplement was this amazing “Map of the Town of Corio (or Geelong) including the Suburbs, the Bay, and the River, 1841 … printed and published for John Pascoe Fawkner by Harrison & Watkins, Corio”.

And what a huge amount of history is in the map and the names associated with it – not least of which is James Harrison a true pioneer of our region. [Do yourself a favour and actually click on the link to read the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for this truly amazing man!]

ANYONE with an ounce of history running through their veins knows how much history exists in our region. I have given presentations all over Victoria and also in New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Many have been on Geelong and Point Henry (the place of arrival of so many ships bringing immigrants to our shores) but the majority have been on other local and family history subjects. Without fail the majority of the audience had ancestors who arrived in Geelong / Point Henry. In June 2011 I gave four presentations to the Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory [GSNT] – almost 100% of the audience had Geelong connections!

Using the National Library of Australia catalogue, I have confirmed the following places where people can access the “full” Geelong Advertiser, either on microfilm or hard copy, to do their research:

Of course, being the LONGEST RUNNING morning newspaper in Victoria AND the newspaper covering not just Geelong but all of the western district of Victoria [and across the border into South Australia] you would think it would be a high priority to be included in the wonderful Digitised Australian newspapers web site.

Have a look at this amazing list of places already included in the Victorian newspapers that have been digitised or are on the 2011-12 list to be digitised:

Acheron

Alexandra

Ararat

Avenel

Bacchus Marsh

Bairnsdale

Balaclava

Ballarat

Balmattam

Bellarine Shire

Benalla

Bourke

Box Hill

Brighton

Broadford

Broadmeadows

Bulla

Buln Buln

Callignee

Camperdown

Casterton

Caulfield

Cheltenham

Coburg

Colac

Dalhousie

Dromana

Drysdale

East Bourke

East Brighton

Elsternwick

Eltham

Emerald Hill

Essendon

Euroa

Evelyn

Fitzroy

Footscray

Frankston

Gippsland

Gobur

Healesville

Heyfield

Horsham

Hurstbridge

Keilor

Kerang

Kilmore

Kyabram

Lilydale

Longwood

Maffra

Malvern

McIvor

Melbourne

Melton

Mentone

Merino

Miepoll

Mildura

Mirboo

Mordialloc

Mornington

Morwell

Narracan Shire

Normanby

North Melbourne

Oakleigh

Omeo

Point Lonsdale

Portarlington

Portland

Portsea

Prahran

Queenscliff

Reedy Creek

Ringwood

Rodney Shire

Sandford

Sandringham

Somerville

Sorrento

South Bourke

South Brighton

South Melbourne

St Leonards

Stawell

Strathbogie

Sunbury

Sunshine

Swan Hill

Taggerty

Tambo

Thornton

Toongabbie

Towong

Traralgon

Tyers

Upper Yarra

Violet Town

Wandin Yallock

Warragul

Warrnambool

Werribee Shire

West Gippsland

Whittlesea

Williamstown

Wimmera

Wodonga

Yarck

Yarra Glen

Yea

So what’s missing? GEELONG !

If the Geelong Advertiser was digitised this list of places would double as it covers so many towns and districts in Western Victoria.

Verbally we’ve been told that if the Geelong Advertiser was digitised it would gobble up the annual newspaper digitising budget for the State Library of Victoria and that wouldn’t be fair on every other area of Melbourne and Victoria. But is that fair on Geelong and half of the rest of Victoria?

What pre-1850 Victorian newspapers have been digitised for the NLA site?

1842: Portland Guardian and Normanby General Advertiser

1846: The Argus

And what about 1850-1860?

1855: The Star [Ballarat]

1856: Williamstown Trade Circular and Williamstown Chronicle

That’s it! The Port Phillip Herald was digitised some years ago and is available [not free] as part of the Paper of Record web site, hence the reason it’s not included on the NLA site.

Did you know that the Geelong Advertiser published lists of people who shipped gold from the gold-fields to the port of Geelong in 1851-54? We have 6,624 entries in our Geelong & District database for the gold shipments. In fact our database includes 29,413 entries transcribed from various editions of the Geelong Advertiser on a variety of subjects.

There is no argument … the Geelong Advertiser should be digitised as part of the National Library Digitised Newspapers project.

What can we do about it?

If you look at the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program for 2011-12 you’ll get an idea from the bottom of the page about the funding sources to get some newspapers into the program. Of course there is no limit to where funding and/or support can come from:

the newspaper [Geelong Advertiser] and associates

the local council [City of Greater Geelong] and nearby and western Victorian municipalities

private individuals and organisations

Federal and State funding including heritage / history type grants

other sources for grants / funding

petitioning the State Library of Victoria

petitioning State and Federal members of parliament

contributions from local societies and organisations

I’m an individual – I can’t do it all [apart from working 5-days a week] – but let’s get something moving!

OK – that’s my soapbox all worn out for now – come on everyone, come up with ideas and actions to help get the Geelong Advertiser digitised for the benefit of ALL researchers.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention that some issues from the first five years of the Geelong Advertiser were digitised as part of the Australian Periodical Publications 1840-1845 project. It’s available online as single page downloads however it’s not searchable.

Hi Liz, a couple of emails have been sent to relevant journos and guest editorial writers. One idea is to get the Addy to start a subscription fund that people could add to from all over Australia / the world to get some funds built up – I’m definitely warming to that one!

I’ve ranted about this several times and been given the same reason for it not being digitised – but its a major newspaper with the advantage of covering huge chunks of regional Victoria as opposed to the Argus which mostly covers Melbourne – i for one would be happy to contribute to a fund to get this paper online!
The disadvantage of course to this paper going online would be that i’d never get off Trove lol

[…] area knows (or should know) Suzie Zada’s name and be familiar with her website and blog. Yesterday’s blog post was in her words ‘a bit of a rant’ about why the Geelong Advertiser is not included in […]

Hi Marjorie – the papers are normally uploaded a year or 6 months at a time. As we’re only getting about 11 years in this batch I think we’ll be happy with anything they upload. Then we have to start looking to the future and more years to be added … Susie Z

Upcoming Events

GMA Sunday TalkFebruary 25, 2018 at 2:00 pm – 3:30 pmNational Wool Museum, 26 Moorabool St, Geelong VIC 3220, AustraliaThe Holden Family and Holden Brothers Circus in our region. Susie Zada will entertain us with the interesting story of this circus family with a base on the Bellarine Peninsula